MIA87FA135 · Piper PA-28-181
American Aviation Piper PA-28-181 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Key West International Airport (EYW) to Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA87FA135
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28-181
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N6505C
- Operator
- American Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Key West International Airport (EYW), Key West, FLTo Brooksville–Tampa Bay Regional Airport (BKV), Brooksville, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft handling, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Impairment(alcohol)
- Pilot in command › Judgment, poor
- Pilot in command › Spatial disorientation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE STUDENT PLT HAD BEEN AUTHORIZED BY HIS CFI TO CONDUCT A SOLO X-COUNTRY TRAINING FLT UNDER DAYTIME VFR CONDITIONS. HE DEPARTED KEY WEST AT 0330 EDT ON THE RETURN PORTION OF THE FLT. NEITHER HIS CFI NOR HIS EMPLOYER COULD OFFER AN EXPLANATION FOR THE 15 HR DELAY IN DEPARTING. WITNESSES, WHO SAW THE PLT BEFORE TAKEOFF, BELIEVED HE WAS INTOXICATED. ABOUT 45 MIN AFTER TAKING OFF, THE ACFT CRASHED & BURNED IN THE EVERGLADES. ALTHO THE WX WAS CLEAR, THE ACDNT OCCURRED ON A DARK NIGHT IN A SPARSELY POPULATED AREA WITH FEW GROUND LIGHTS. AN EXAM OF THE WRECKAGE REVEALED THE ACFT CRASHED WHILE IN A STEEP, INVERTED ATTITUDE. NO PREIMPACT PART FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION WAS FOUND. TESTS OF THE PLT'S BLOOD & URINE SHOWED ALCOHOL LVLS OF 0.25% & 0.32%, RESPECTIVELY. EVIDENCE OF MARIJUANA WAS DETECTED IN HIS URINE, BUT NONE WAS FOUND IN HIS BLOOD. A MED EXAMINER RPRTD HE HAD ISSUED THE STUDENT A CLASS III MEDICAL CERTIFICATE ON 6/23/86, BUT HE HAD MOVED SINCE THEN & COULD NOT LOCATE THE MED RECORDS. THE FAA RECORD CENTER HAD NO RECORD OF THE MED EXAM.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA87FA135
- Event ID
- 20001213X30738
- Case number
- MIA87FA135
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 5017f01d36ef7badd89dca424b7c29bcad2b6ca43abf6ac0e461dc7e9b220e30; retrieved 2026-09-21T04:10:12.281Z.